Puppeteer is a game with a unique visual style, cool art direction, and fun gameplay mechanics. It’s a shame this game doesn’t have more of a following. The presentation is truly unique, with everything being framed as a live puppet show. And wow, for a puppet show, this game has a hell of a story. So apparently, the Moon Goddess used to be the one to rule over the moon, until one day her loyal servant, the Little Bear overthrew her and declared himself Moon Bear King. Using the power of a stolen pair of magic scissors named Calibrus and the Black Moonstone, the Moon Bear King wreaked havoc on the moon and its inhabitants. Now he sits atop the moon, stealing the souls of children from Earth and placing them into puppets to become his servants.

You play as Kutaro, one of the kids turned into a puppet. You meet a witch who helps you to steal Calibrus, which allows you to fight against the Moon Bear King’s minions and traverse the environment. Kutaro must travel across the moon, freeing the souls of those enslaved by the Moon Bear King and bringing peace throughout the land. All climaxing in a fight against the Moon Bear King himself, to stop his terrible reign.

As you can tell, the story is really epic for the kind of show they’re trying to put on. With twists, turns, and colorful characters everywhere, it’s one puppet show I’d actually love to see. And everything about this game is reminiscent of a puppet show. The puppets all make little clicks of wood when moving, there’s a curtain constantly framing the screen, characters breaking the fourth wall, audience reactions, and as you saw in the intro, it’s a musical. 

The characters are genuinely endearing and the graphics are really convincing, but sometimes it feels like a half measure. The jokes, while usually either okay or chuckle-worthy, do fall flat sometimes. And I know giving strings to all of the objects on screen would have been a mess, but maybe the main characters and enemies could have at least been shown to have them. It’s just a little silly to see a character wobble somewhere like a puppet without any kind of visible reason behind it. Also, some of the objects have a lot of effort put into making them look like cheap puppet show backgrounds, while others stray a bit too far from the art style, creating a detachment from the action. The style is still great, lending itself to a lot of creative gameplay choices and really fun action set pieces and those animations when using Kutaro’s various heads are adorable! 

The voice acting is really great and fun, but sometimes it’s a bit behind the action. Same with the audience reactions. Awkward pauses and missed audio cues mean you can really tell the voice actors weren’t recording this in the same room together and that the programmers didn’t work on the timing as much as they needed to.

The music is fantastic though. Every track makes you feel like you’re going through a puppet show composed by John Williams. The tracks during comedic moments are delightfully cheesy, and during the actiony moments they’re exciting and empowering. This game really makes you feel like you’re embarking on an adventure.

So what do you do in this game? Well at its core, Puppeteer is a 2D sidescroller. Kutaro’s main controls are running, jumping, rolling, and attacking with the scissors. Each level consists of going from right to left until reaching the next scene while dodging obstacles and defeating enemies. In addition to traditional movement, you can use the scissors to cut along certain parts of the environment and use seams to travel great distances quickly. Along the way Kutaro will also gain powerups such as bombs or a grappling hook to open up hidden areas, solve simple puzzles, and move along faster.

Kutaro’s life is measured by the heads he collects. He can hold three at any given time and when hurt, he can chase after the head to try get it back before it disappears. If he loses all three heads, he loses a life. He can get more lives by collecting 100 moon crystals, like coins in Mario. By changing his head, he can also use its special powers to unlock more secrets, take shortcuts, and access bonus levels. It’s like having Halloween costumes during gameplay! And I’m not just shoehorning in a Halloween reference to this game because I’m too scared to play an actual horror game for Halloween. Don’t judge me!

Along for the adventure is the sun princess, Picarina. She’ll banter with the narrator, talk to the audience, and generally be charming (if sometimes annoying). You can use the right stick to move her around the environment to unlock hidden secrets. Seriously, she can interact with so many things in the environment that it would leave Putt Putt’s head spinning. You’ll usually just get moon gems, but sometimes you can unlock a new head. This is a neat mechanic just because of how much of the world can be interacted with and how it improves the game’s replayability. It adds variety to the pacing, so if you get bored when the action dies down and you’re learning new mechanics or getting some story info you have something to do. Sadly, it does sometimes put secrets in places you shouldn’t have to slow down in. When you’re in the middle of fast-paced platforming action, it is kind of boring to have to stop just to use Picarina to look around and try to find hidden secrets.

The environments, level designs, and modes of transportation vary immensely and they’re always fun to play. Each act has you chasing down one or two of the Moon Bear King’s generals, each based on an animal. Normally in platformers the bosses are either sparse or rarely seen throughout the level until your fight at the end of a world, but in this game, they put on a show. Sometimes they’re in the background, sometimes they’re openly taunting you in the foreground, and sometimes they are the environment. It gives them just enough character to make fighting each of them a delight.

Not only that, but almost every level ends with a boss battle as well. Each fight is unique and different. Even when certain enemies are reused (I’m looking at you, curtain scarecrow), the mechanics of the fight are different than last time. And while the game is generally pretty easy, there are some tricky platforming moments and boss battles that had me on the ropes. 

The only big downside is the replayablility. The levels are typically pretty long at 20-40 minutes apiece. That’s a bit too long for this type of gameplay. Although rare, fatigue did set in sometimes, and it left me wishing there was a way to stop halfway through a level, if only to go do something else without losing progress.

Finally, the game has bonus missions sprinkled throughout, one per stage. You unlock these by finding a place in the map and using a specific head to unlock them. These consist of various challenges, again breaking away from the gameplay formula to introduce new, fresh mechanics in which you have to navigate Kutaro through a series of screens collecting all of the moon gems within a certain time limit. They’re really fun and tense, and the perfect way to break up the action.

Unfortunately, opening the bonus doors is a tedious task. In order to unlock more bonus missions, you have to go to a level, collect the necessary head, finish the level without losing it, then hop into another level, get to the place where you can use that head without losing it, and then you can use it to unlock a bonus level or another head. None of the heads have special powers or advantages other than unlocking doors, and some just give you an advantage in boss fights or some moon gems. Luckily, once a bonus stage is unlocked, you can replay it any time without needing to go through the entire process of unlocking the door again. Still, it’s a bit too much effort for the reward you get, so they’re not worth hunting down, but if you have the chance to play one, it will probably be really fun.

Puppeteer isn’t the most masterful game on the market, but it’s still an excellent platformer that knows how to have fun. And while it doesn’t fully utilize the puppet aesthetic to the fullest, it does enough to give the game a visual flair that most games can only hope to come close to matching. The world and story are immense in scope and the gameplay is always fun and never repetitive. This is a unique game that should be celebrated and I hope they end up making a sequel at some point. My final rating for Puppeteer is… 8.5 Jeff Dunhams out of 10.